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Technical Specs, anyone?

 
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Hi All,

For most of my web app projects, I did not write tech specs, only functional design specs. I regretted not writing tech specs, because one time I ended up in the hospital for an appendectomy, and was therefore out of work for a week. I had spoken to everyone regarding their assignments, they took notes. Though, not thoroughly, so most were always at my desk with questions when I was there. Also, I believe some were starting new assignments that weren't explained yet. So, during that week everyone was completely lost. Not only that, but standard app framework was hard to manage bacause everyone did what they wanted to do.

This time around, with a few more experienced java developers, and 6 more coming next week, I tried breaking the project up in modules, and assigning leads to each module. Each of them, and myself are to write technical specs for our modules. That way the new developers that are coming can read/code, read/code, read/code, ask a few questions, then read/code, read/code, read/code again.

The problems are:

1: Most of the leads claim that they can write the code faster than to give so much detail in a tech spec.

2: Most, including myself, don't know what the format of the document should be, as I've never seen one until a template found by one teammate.

3: Although this template was used, we have tech specs for each module that looks very very different than one another because everyone wants to re-format to their understanding & only include certain information, that is, in my opinion, not enough.

Does anybody write tech specs?

If not, how do you control the confusion?

If yes, can anyone suggest a template that has worked well for them?


Thanks in advance!
Lulu
[ February 27, 2007: Message edited by: Lulu Carr ]
 
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Great questions, but probably ones more appropriate for the process forum.

--Mark
 
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